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The criminal thing about the celery is that no one ever even questioned it. It's just one of those obvious character moments that the JNT era was famous for missing. At the end of "Castrovalva", he pulls it out of his interior coat pocket, plops it on his lapel in front of his three companions. They all watch him do it. And not a one of them says, "What the hell is that thing?" It's quite literally a surreal moment.

To me the thing that's odd is not that it took until his last story to get an answer, but that it took five companions to get to the question. Freakin' amazin' to me that it's only his dumbest companion that was curious about it.

The really sad thing is that, if JNT and Saward had any sense of humor at all, it could have been one of the best running gags in the series' history. I would have been much happier with three seasons of "Doctor, please tell us what that thing is" answered by "it doesn't do anything", than three years of silence answered by "it's a sophisticated gas detector".

It's interesting that the JNT era reduced something pointedly organic into a piece of meaningless technology, whereas the RTD era has turned the marvelously complex TARDIS into something poignantly organic.

"I think of myself as ambitious in casting terms, and I know that Bonnie [Langford] has the potential to make the part totally unirritating . . ." — JNT, 1986

So you're telling me that if someone pinned celery on their lapel right in front of you, you would ask no questions at all? Even if you give the production team the benefit of the doubt and said that Nyssa and Adric, as aliens, wouldn't recognize celery, Tegan should bloody well have said, "What the hell are you doing, Doctor?"

But that's just a criticism for that tiny moment in "Castrovalva". All the other times he encounters humans throughout his tenure should have brought a raised eyebrow or five, too. "Black Orchid" was a perfect time. The Victorian English wouldn't have asked him why he has celery on his lapel? The people of "Kings Demons"? The Londoners of "Resurrection of the Daleks"?

Please.

Someone comes up to you wearing a piece of celery and then tries to act like they know what's going on and that you should trust them? Someone, somewhere, somehow should have said, "Dude, you're wearing celery. Why should I believe a word you say?"

I just think it's a tragedy that it never became every bit as effective a trademark bit of comedy for Davison as jellybabies were for Baker, and, instead, it was inexplicably ignored. I still hope that at some point we get Tennant face-to-face with some celery one day and he pointedly chooses not to eat it.

"I think of myself as ambitious in casting terms, and I know that Bonnie [Langford] has the potential to make the part totally unirritating . . ." — JNT, 1986

I don't know. So many people here pin other flora such as flowers (i.e. carnations with leaves) to their lapel and no one bats an eye. What I find amazing about the celery is the simple fact that it never wilted. For every time I would pin celery to my lapel in the early 80's it would begin to wilt within an hour or two (yes, I tried it). The 5th Doctor's celery never really had that problem much.

So my question to the 5th Doctor would not be why he is wearing celery, but rather why it doesn't wilt.

Yes, flowers. Fine. But not celery. It's so completely outside the range of common fashion trends to wear vegetables that it's, to me, a minor plot hole that no one ever calls him it.

Its sort of an even bigger plot hole when we discover what the thing actually does. Surely he doesn't think that in every one of his adventures there's an actual risk that he will encounter the gases that the thing will detect. Not that the celery will actually help him if he actually does have an allergic reaction to these "certain" gases "in the Praxis range of the spectrum", but at least he's got something on his lapel that's gonna turn purple if he encounters one of these handful of the universe's gases. Great.

The other thing the celery does—that is, pinch-hitting as a kind of smelling salt—is something that could have, and should have been used on several previous occasions in the Fifth Doctor's life.

But, no.

It's functionality is just as silly as its unquestioned ornamentation. If only it had been a slightly bigger deal in "Castrovalva", Saward's explanation might just have worked. Had we gotten something which more explicitly tied it to the stabilization of the Doctor's troublesome regeneration, it would've been at least a middlingly interesting bit of costuming.

But, alas, at the end of the day, it's just another lame 80s question-mark-on-a-collar.

"I think of myself as ambitious in casting terms, and I know that Bonnie [Langford] has the potential to make the part totally unirritating . . ." — JNT, 1986

Maybe it's just a national emlem? In Wales, every 1st of March (St David's Day) we wear either a Daffodil on our lapel, or a leek! Don't ask why, something to do with Welsh Longbowmen at the Battle of Agincourt.
To be honest, never really bothered me about the celery when I was a kid, still doesn't.

[Quote by: taff1a] Maybe it's just a national emlem? In Wales, every 1st of March (St David's Day) we wear either a Daffodil on our lapel, or a leek! Don't ask why, something to do with Welsh Longbowmen at the Battle of Agincourt.
To be honest, never really bothered me about the celery when I was a kid, still doesn't.

Have we found a missing Torchwood link here? Was celery the national emblem of Wales before Queen Victoria ordered it to change to the daffodil? Do the people of Cardiff still wear a stick of celery instead of a daffodil on 1st March every year? Who cares? (no pun)

[Quote by: stjohnny] What's with the cricket whites? Is he a fan of cricket, and if so, why wear a jersey when you're out and about?
And what's with the limp celery?

Episode 50 of the DWO Whocast features an interview with Peter Davison where he talks about both of these costume points, and is well worth a listen (you can find it on iTunes, for anyone who doesn't know it).

In regard to the cricket outfit, he says that was an idea he came up with in response to JNT's priority that he wanted to emphasise the 5th Doctor's youth and energy. As someone else mentioned earlier, Davison also says that he was a little disappointed in the final costume as, when he made the suggestion, he had intended a more "off-the-rack" look rather than the tailored look of the final product.

In regard to the celery, he sounded as dubious as most of the fans. He said that, in selling the celery to Davison as a costume element, JNT assured him that its function would be addressed in the stories. From memory, Davison said it was only finally explained in Caves of Androzani because he pointed out to JNT at the time of Androzani's production that they had reached his last story as the Doctor and JNT had still not fulfilled his promise to explain the celery in a plot.

Well JNT was into giving the characters a set look. Hence why Adric was always in outfit/uniform, Nyssa had her velvet and corduroy and Tegan had her stewardess uhm flight attendant outfit and The Doctor had his cricket uniform.

Actually Davison wanted a more off-the-rack hodgepodge of clothing alas JNT said no. It started in the final Tom Baker season when JNT took the reins.

Then we had Colin Baker's Technicolor Dreamcoat and what was the deal with that cat pin?

[Quote by: Louis] What I find amazing about the celery is the simple fact that it never wilted. For every time I would pin celery to my lapel in the early 80's it would begin to wilt within an hour or two (yes, I tried it). The 5th Doctor's celery never really had that problem much.

I think Louis just found the reason why they used celery with the costume. To see how many fans would walk around with celery pinned to their clothes.